90210 is an American television teen drama series that aired on The CW from September 2, 2008 to May 13, 2013. It is the fourth series in the Beverly Hills, 90210 franchise.
Summary[]
Tracy has a daughter of her own, Naomi Clark, who dates jock Ethan Ward, brief rival of Dixon, whom she soon breaks up with. Annie and Ethan then pursue a relationship after having dated the summer prior to Annie moving to Beverly Hills, when Annie was visiting her grandmother for the summer. Both girls alternate between being friends, enemies, in a love triangle, and almost sisters, due to their parents' child. Their respective mothers find themselves in a love triangle of their own after Tracy's marriage to Charles Clark implodes (which Naomi takes quite badly) and she appears to want Harry back. Naomi's fight with Annie forces her out of the crowd after she starts her many plots of manipulation and revenge when she uses Annie's ex-boyfriend from Kansas, Jason, as a weapon to get back at her for hiding her relationship with Ethan. She becomes friends with a group of older girls and starts flirting with Ozzie, a rather alternative student, and later becomes attracted to a bartender named Liam, whom she soon finds out is actually her age and becomes a student at West Beverly High. Meanwhile, Ethan and Annie's relationship hits the rocks as he begins to rethink his life after a car accident and gets more or less attracted to Rhonda, the girl he hit. Soon Naomi and Liam begin a romance, and once she becomes friends with Annie again, Liam's repetitive indecisiveness begins as he starts to pursue the both of them.
Naomi's best friend, fallen starlet Adrianna Tate-Duncan, battles a drug addiction. This gets her into trouble when Harry decides to raid the school, thanks to the help of a cop, Kimberly McIntyre, under cover as a student. Kimberly begins a relationship with teacher/lacrosse coach Ryan Matthews, which gets him into trouble with the school. Guilt-ridden, Kimberly does her best to solve the case, giving Ryan his job back, although he takes a leave of absence to rethink his life, and Adrianna lands in rehab, after almost getting Naomi in legal troubles as she took the blame for the drugs. There, she begins a relationship with Navid Shirazi, head of the school's paper and Dixon's best friend, who paid for her rehab. Navid and Adrianna are in completely different groups in high school. Adrianna was much more outgoing and popular while Navid was more focused on his studies. Navid's dream was to have an opportunity to date Adrianna. Although at first she only does it to "repay" him, they start to genuinely care about each other. Adrianna later discovers she is pregnant as a result of her promiscuity while she was addicted. After telling Navid of her pregnancy, he breaks up with her. It is later revealed that the father of Adrianna's child is Ty, although it is unclear when they slept together. She and Navid get back together when he realizes that even though she is a mess he can't get over her, and get engaged, although he alienates his family when he tells them that the child is not his and gets upset when Adrianna reveals her daughter is Ty's. Navid's family is very close knit and is in someways conservative. This is only applies to some areas of life, seeing that his dad runs an adult entertainment business.
Another featured character is Erin Silver (who goes by her last name), Kelly Taylor and David Silver's half sister and Naomi's former best friend, until Silver's father's affair is revealed by Naomi, although she eventually reconciles her friendship with Naomi. She quickly befriends Annie and starts dating Dixon, who is somewhat taken aback by her not-so-90210 lifestyle, as she is a virgin who doesn't care about popularity. In a multi-episode arc that culminated in a very special episode, it is revealed that Silver has bipolar disorder. Kelly Taylor is now a guidance counselor at West Beverly and has a son named Sammy. Kelly becomes Silver's guardian after their mother proves to be an inadequate caretaker for Silver due to her alcoholism. Kelly briefly dates Ryan, but discovers that he also slept with Brenda, re-creating the rift between the two friends. Following Brenda's discovery that she cannot have children, however, the women are drawn together in an accord once again.
At the prom, Adrianna goes into labor. She gives birth to a daughter whom she gives up for adoption. It is also revealed that Brenda has adopted a child from China. Ethan begins to realize his feelings for Silver, which leads to a confrontation with Dixon and a kiss with Silver. At Naomi and Jen's (her sister) after-prom party, Liam sleeps with Jen. He is mad that Naomi told Jen about his past: he wanted to keep it a secret. However, he was not aware that Jen was Naomi's sister, and upon finding out is horrified. Naomi finds out about it but thinks that Annie was with Liam, not Jen. This culminates in a major fight between Annie and Naomi where Annie is shunned by her peers, runs away, gets in her car drunk and accidentally runs over a man. This is a suspenseful way to end the season and definitely brings plot twist seeing that Annie is not sure whether or not this man survived.
Cast[]
- Rob Estes
- Shenae Grimes
- Tristan Wilds
- AnnaLynne McCord
- Dustin Milligan
- Ryan Eggold
- Jessica Stroup
- Michael Steger
- Lori Loughlin
- Jessica Walter
- Jessica Lowndes
- Matt Lanter
- Trevor Donovan
- Gillian Zinser
Series overview[]
| Season | No. of episodes | Originally aired | Time slot | Average ratings | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| First aired | Last aired | Rating (18-49) |
Viewers (millions) | |||
| 1 | 24 | September 2, 2008 | May 19, 2009 | Tuesdays 8/7c | 1.4 | 2.66[2] |
| Tuesdays 9/8c | ||||||
| 2 | 22 | September 8, 2009 | May 18, 2010 | Tuesdays 8/7c | 0.9 | 1.87[3] |
| 3 | 22 | September 13, 2010 | May 16, 2011 | Mondays 8/7c | 1.76[4] | |
| 4 | 24 | September 13, 2011 | May 15, 2012 | Tuesdays 8/7c | 0.7 | 1.34[5] |
| 5 | 22 | October 8, 2012 | May 13, 2013 | Mondays 8/7c | 0.4 | 0.77[6] |
| Mondays 9/8c | ||||||
Production[]
Conception[]
Once pitched, the project was put on the fast track by The CW, and an order of the pilot was expected by the end of the month. The Beverly Hills, 90210 creator, Darren Star, was announced not to be involved with the project. The only surviving element from the original series was believed to be Creative Artists Agency, the talent agency which conceived the spin-off idea. Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas was in negotiations to write the pilot and Mark Piznarski was in talks to direct it.
Reception[]
Critical response[]
Most reviews of the pilot were average. Metacritic gave the episode a Metascore—a weighted average based on the impressions of a select 12 critical reviews—of 46, signifying mixed or average reviews. Matthew Gilbert of The Boston Globe felt that like the original, 90210 was "pretty good". Gilbert said that the episode "seemed to take forever to set up some remarkably bland plotlines", which he found had been executed with more finesse by other teen soaps. The reviewer criticized the writers for "unimaginative material", and commented on the risqué oral sex scene. Gilbert claimed that the characters lacked depth and distinction throughout the pilot, especially Naomi, whom he compared negatively to Gossip Girl's Blair Waldorf. By contrast, Tom Gliatto of People magazine gave Naomi Clark a favorable review, but stated that he felt the cast as a whole had yet to gel. When compared to the original series, Rob Owen of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette felt that the spin-off covered the same themes—family, friends, teen melodrama, relationships—but with more humor. Owen praised the compelling characters and the acting, and found the dialogue to be more painful than clever.
As the show continued its first season, the response became considerably more positive, and by the second season critical response was favorable. Entertainment Weekly gave the second season an A-, stating that "all it took was a little sunshine to give this show some heat", and that the "new, trashier take is working" after what they considered a "drippy" first season. LaDale Anderson of Canyon News commented on the change between the first two seasons, saying that "the transformation of the characters and storylines in season two has been fantastic", and "sometimes a show needs a makeover and with the right pieces in place a not so good show can become something sensational." The reviewer opined that "what has worked so well [...] is that the characters are not one-dimensional. With most shows characters seamlessly continue to embody characteristics that solely define them, but not here." Anderson also praised the writing, saying it was "intricate and intertwines itself without forcing the storylines to connect; they mesh naturally."
External links[]
References[]
- ↑ Ratings - List of 90210 episodes
- ↑ Season 1 (2008-09) - Ratings - List of 90210 episodes
- ↑ Season 2 (2009-10) - Ratings - List of 90210 episodes
- ↑ Season 3 (2010-11) - Ratings - List of 90210 episodes
- ↑ Season 4 (2011-12) - Ratings - List of 90210 episodes
- ↑ Season 5 (2012-13) - Ratings - List of 90210 episodes